06.23.12 8:45 AM ET

The theory that hip, “creative class” residents drive economic growth has become an article of faith among urban planners. Frank Bures believed it until he moved to Madison, Wisconsin, and started finding cracks in the gospel.

A Princeton professor and former Obama adviser provoked an explosive debate with this essay arguing that, absent a significant rearrangement of the American workplace, it will remain impossible for women to have high-powered careers and successfully raise children at the same time. Plus, read responses from Rebecca Traister, E.J. Graff, Hanna Rosin,Lauren Sandler and Lindsay Beyerstein.

By the next century nearly half of the roughly 7,000 languages spoken on Earth will likely disappear, as communities abandon native tongues in favor of English, Mandarin, or Spanish. What is lost when a language goes silent?